Migraines & Headaches

What’s the Difference Between Headaches and Migraines?

A headache can cause pain in your head, face, and upper neck. This pain ranges from a mild ache to intense pain, often resulting from tense muscles, stress, or colds and flu.

A migraine is a painful disorder, often causing debilitating pain in the front or side of the head. The pain usually feels like a stabbing or throbbing sensation that can last for several hours to several days.

For some, migraine attacks happen in phases. Initially, you might have mood changes and increased sensitivity to lights, sounds, and smells. You might also experience auras that disturb your vision, speech, and cognitive skills before migraine pain begins.

What Causes Headaches and Migraines?

A variety of factors can trigger headaches and migraine pain, which vary from person to person. Common triggers include:

• Stress
• Anxiety
• Dehydration
• Overexertion
• Poor sleep quality
• Hormonal changes

You might also be prone to developing headaches or migraines when you’re hungry or after eating certain foods.

What Treatments are Available for Headaches and Migraines?

When recurrent headaches or painful migraines interfere with your usual routine, the staff at Health Atlast offers a variety of treatments to address the root cause of your headache and ease or eliminate pain and other symptoms.

Initially, your Health Atlast provider will recommend massage therapy to release tension in your neck muscles that can trigger head pain. You might also benefit from acupuncture to relieve headache pain and reduce your reliance on medications.

Nutritional counseling is also available to ensure you’re eating a healthy diet and giving your body the nutrients it needs to function at its best. Your provider can also recommend yoga, Pilates, and at-home stretching exercises to reduce stress and anxiety.

Misalignments of your spine can lead to recurrent headaches, so chiropractic adjustments can be a useful therapy in treating painful headaches and migraines.

When head pain is intense and not relieved by these therapies, your Health Atlast provider can recommend injectable therapies like trigger point injections and nerve blocks.

How Do Trigger Point Injections and Nerve Blocks Work?

Trigger point injections can be an effective treatment of headaches resulting from tension. Your Health Atlast provider inserts a dry needle into areas of tight muscle fibers, loosening them to relieve tension and pain.

Nerve blocks are another treatment of disruptive headaches. Your provider injects an anesthetic into the area surrounding the nerves that are responsible for your headache pain. Nerve blocks provide both immediate and long-lasting relief from chronic migraine pain.

Don’t let migraines and headaches limit what you can do. Schedule a consultation online or by calling the office nearest you today.